7.1.5 PTR Feedback Posts: Survival Hunters and Secondary Stat Changes

Following the earlier discussion today on better and more-frequent 7.1.5 PTR communication, Blizzard staff is starting to address some of the more specific concerns. We will be compiling the replies on class and system changes in this post.

Ornyx

Sorry for the delay in replying to this. Long story short, we agree with the concerns laid out in this thread: Waylay as a damage mechanic isn't playing well, and the increased trap cooldown is a nerf that undermines other utility upgrades. We've been discussing exactly what we want to do about it, and can share some details:

For starters, the Trap cooldown is going back to a baseline of 30 seconds, just like it is in Patch 7.1. We had initially increased it to 40 based on some concerns that Hunter crowd control might end up too powerful in some situations, but after further consideration, we don't think that'll be necessary.

Regarding Waylay, the original intent of the passive was to reinforce Survival's niche as trap experts (especially with other Hunter specializations getting traps again) by rewarding clever placement of traps when you're able to anticipate your enemy's movement. After all, the very nature of a trap is a hazard set ahead of time for an unsuspecting victim, whereas traps today often end up feeling more like lobbed explosives. However, in group gameplay, the movement of your targets is largely outside of your direct control, and any sort of rotational damage benefit of Waylay is likely to be far more frustrating than fun. We're going to remove the damage-increasing benefit that Waylay provided to Explosive Trap and let its bonuses focus purely on utility. With the Freezing Trap and Tar Trap cooldown now unchanged, this makes Waylay simply a new utility perk over what Survival has on live, and we're excited about some of the potential ways Hunters can make use of it in both PvE and PvP.

As an aside (and this is relevant to all classes and specs), part of our goal to keep patches coming at a steady pace in Legion means that you're likely to see more half-completed ideas and strange experiments on PTR than even veteran testers might be used to in previous expansions. Just because a change shows up in a PTR build does not mean that it's something the team views as a final design (or even a design we're necessarily happy with). This has been especially true with 7.1.5, and we've done a poor job of communicating that thus far. We'd like to apologize for that failing, and it's something we're actively working to correct.

Secondary Stats

The last PTR build introduced some secondary stat changes, as discussed at the Post BlizzCon Q&A. The goal of the overall change was to fix the problems surrounding jewelry and to ensure that secondary stats were not more powerful or desirable than primary stats. However, the stat changes visible on the PTR were incomplete which has led to confusion:

Lore

The changes to secondary stat ratings in 7.1.5 have a few goals, and certain pieces are not yet in the current build.

Goal 1: Increase the importance of item level as a guideline for upgrading items. Moreso than in the past, large item level increases are not a reliable indicator of an upgrade due to the variance in power of secondary stats on an item. Increasing the amount of rating that you need per percentage of a secondary stat tips the balance of an item’s power more heavily toward primary stat. We’re okay with very small item level upgrades being a tougher choice, but some specs are currently passing up 15+ item levels in favor of secondary stats. That shouldn’t be something players are encouraged to do – with the occasional exception on rings and necks, which brings us to our second goal.

Goal 2: Improve rings and necks. The removal of primary stats from those slots on Legion gear means that your choices of secondary stats there are impactful, which we like. However, they still suffer from the problem of secondary stat distribution dominating the choice of which item to equip. We’ve increased how heavily item level affects the amount of stats on Legion rings and necks in 7.1.5, which will make significant item level jumps a clearer indicator of an upgrade on these slots. You’ll still find situations in which secondary stat choice is more important than item level for rings and necks, which is intentional; we’re just dialing it back a bit.

Goal 3: Don’t lower player power. This is a key part of the overall strategy that isn’t yet complete. Right now, on the PTR, player power is definitely down a few percent compared to live. The next build will have changes that increase the total amount of stats given by all items above level 800 to account for this gap, such that the overall power of your equipped items should be about the same (if not slightly higher) than it is currently in 7.1.

As you might expect, these changes will affect some classes more strongly than others. More overall character power will come from your primary stats than it did before, so all of your abilities will hit harder, even if they crit less or happen less frequently. Additionally, as we continue tuning for Patch 7.1.5, we’ll make adjustments as necessary on a spec-by-spec basis.Apologies if I'm reading this wrong. But it sounds like the plan is to make us require more of a secondary stat, then provide us a higher value of secondary stats on existing gear.

Isn't this counterproductive or am I just derp?

It's a tough bit of mathematical gymnastics that's tough to explain succinctly, but the long and the short of it is that the way that the item's primary stat (or sheer amount of secondary stats, in the case of rings and necks) make the higher-ilevel piece an upgrade more often.

I think they need to look into specs that rely on extreme cases of secondary dependence and adjust those specs accordingly. This blanket nerf is going to cause more problems.

Comments

Comment by SacredBlaze

on 2016-12-01T14:54:47-06:00

I do agree with almost everything regarding Waylay. However if that's the case they should bring back the regular Improved traps talent (or make it a baseline passive since it's 100% mandatory for everything PVE, PVP, Solo content, etc.) so we can kind of recover our core rotation. Right now having Explosive trap on a 24s CD and making it a skill shot rather than a instant deploy at melee makes it's usage on our dps rotation even more weird and clunky.

And if you are going to 100% remove any Explosive trap bonuses from Waylay, just revert the spell back to live with melee deploy.

Comment by TwistedPhayte

on 2016-12-01T15:29:42-06:00

If a cake isn't done, you don't take it out of the oven. If a change isn't done, don't take it out of the box. Put it back in the box and keep that box closed tighter than an original Star Wars action figure. Otherwise you're going to have a lot of angry fans at you because you took something out of the box that you shouldn't have taken out of the box. This is one of those moments where your teacher in school would take you, sit you down, and tell you that oversharing isn't a good thing. Some things are better left a mystery, Mr. Lore

Comment by Flamebreaker

on 2016-12-01T16:01:47-06:00

What you're currently seeing on PTR is unfinished - we have more adjustments to make that will compensate for this initial change. Details to come once those adjustments are more fleshed out.

More lies! Nothing is unfinished! This is what will come out of that cancerous patch!

Comment by ShaofRiches

on 2016-12-01T16:01:58-06:00

In this case though, they're "testing" the cake recipe in the manner of seeing what time the proverbial cake is done. Until it's finalized, there's not much harm in trial-and-error to see player reception (both verbal and gameplay). Worst case scenario is that they put in waylay's first design in a relatively short PTR period, and have almost no changes because there wasn't time for constructive criticism.

Letting explosive trap be thrown instead of being tossed in front of me also gives a little bit more flexibilityon where it's going to hit, espesically when you're trying to work with it's radial explosion. Although it's still a nerf to it's dps since we are losing improved traps as a talent option.

Comment by Ruatha

on 2016-12-01T16:11:03-06:00

If a cake isn't done, you don't take it out of the oven. If a change isn't done, don't take it out of the box. Put it back in the box and keep that box closed tighter than an original Star Wars action figure. Otherwise you're going to have a lot of angry fans at you because you took something out of the box that you shouldn't have taken out of the box. This is one of those moments where your teacher in school would take you, sit you down, and tell you that oversharing isn't a good thing. Some things are better left a mystery, Mr. Lore

Except it is still in the oven. The use of the PTR is going from pure 'we're vetting this for bugs, changes are final' to an actual test of mechanics and values. Assuming this shift in philosophy of the use of the PTR is followed through, this is an exciting change that will allow the developers to get a lot of better data.

Their in house testing has, in the past, not been as thorough as players by simple fact of the number and skill of their testers compared to the playerbase. Not to say their testers are terrible but there are limits to the number of them they have, the time they have to test, and their skill pool is not going to have the best players out there simply because the best players are in Mythic guilds competing for firsts.

We'l have to see how this new usage of the PTR plays out. I usually pop on to see how new abilities or value changes look but don;t spend a lot of time on the PTR. I may spend a bit more now that it is not just a preview of live changes to provide feedback.

Comment by AKPlayer

on 2016-12-01T16:21:01-06:00

Secondary stats - Yes you did mention this in the livestream, but the actual change is a pretty serious chunk being removed. It's really appearing more like a major NERF than a fixing of stats.

How about you fix Main Stat? My Monk healer hates so much Mastery being forced when I don't want as much the Artifact and Legendaries are giving. I can change ALL my gear but those items and still have slightly too much Mastery stat. (IMHO)

Comment by Nazthori

on 2016-12-01T19:08:42-06:00

I do agree with almost everything regarding Waylay. However if that's the case they should bring back the regular Improved traps talent (or make it a baseline passive since it's 100% mandatory for everything PVE, PVP, Solo content, etc.) so we can kind of recover our core rotation. Right now having Explosive trap on a 24s CD and making it a skill shot rather than a instant deploy at melee makes it's usage on our dps rotation even more weird and clunky.

And if you are going to 100% remove any Explosive trap bonuses from Waylay, just revert the spell back to live with melee deploy.

This.Also, that's my thread in the blue post. Neat.

Comment by Interest

on 2016-12-01T19:18:44-06:00

Secondary stats - Yes you did mention this in the livestream, but the actual change is a pretty serious chunk being removed. It's really appearing more like a major NERF than a fixing of stats.

How about you fix Main Stat? My Monk healer hates so much Mastery being forced when I don't want as much the Artifact and Legendaries are giving. I can change ALL my gear but those items and still have slightly too much Mastery stat. (IMHO)

They probably need to do both. Secondaries have a separate problem where they were going to scale out of control by the next tier or so, which is something Blizzard has run into numerous times before and had to address it (see: Sunwell Radiance, haste nerfs, etc). Buffing primaries wouldn't fix that and having harsh soft caps would make greatly curb power gain in later tiers, which would make players not feel like they're getting that much more powerful.

Even if for some unlikely reason Blizzard doesn't engage in another phase of their plans that involves changing primary stat scaling (probably by altering both ability scaling and how much base stats a primary stat provides depending on class), which is likely necessary to make certain endgame content possible to do, I'd rather take the nerf now instead of feeling like upgrades are near worthless later.

Comment by Tremonti95

on 2016-12-01T23:00:47-06:00

Well this "Waylay" thing might work for solo stuff like world quests and maybe for pvp but its not going to work on pve, I can't ask the tank to kite the boss to my trap

Comment by cstahlhut

on 2016-12-01T23:23:36-06:00

Well this "Waylay" thing might work for solo stuff like world quests and maybe for pvp but its not going to work on pve, I can't ask the tank to kite the boss to my trap

Why not? There are plenty of dps aie abilities that tanks need to move mobs into, plus as they said its utility not damage.

Comment by Bananamans

on 2016-12-02T01:00:27-06:00

At the moment ring and neck item upgrades are completely based on secondary stats, not item level. How about no random stats for rings and necks? These items are the odd ones out when it comes to gear, having no primary stat and large secondary stats.

What if all the secondary stats appear on the rings and neck, equal numbers for each stat, and the only change would come with an item level increase, which would be an increase in all of the stats. This would mean no one stat would stand out for these items and upgrades would feel like upgrades.

Comment by sableon

on 2016-12-02T05:47:28-06:00

making it a skill shot rather than a instant deploy at melee makes it's usage on our dps rotation even more weird and clunky.

Use new macro commands @player and it will be instant melee deploy I'm sure

/cast Explosive trap

Comment by Spexlianok

on 2016-12-02T07:39:26-06:00

I would most definitely use Waylay. When im taming a pet i use hatchet toss, lure them into my freezing trap, and then tame

Comment by Kadael

on 2016-12-02T09:31:34-06:00

I don't understand the focus on traps tbh, I'd rather see them generating more focus and doing more dmg in line with other specs.

SV just feels wrong and really clunky, doesn't flow too well and I'm left wondering if I've done decent dmg or letting a group down.

To that end the Hunter was shelved a month or so ago...

Comment by phoenicks

on 2016-12-02T10:12:13-06:00

I hope the changes they make to primary/secondary stats difference ends up the way they want it to. I don't enjoy having my aff lock having to stack mastery above even intellect where ilvls aren't that big of a deal. My locks max ilvl is 879..his actual ilvl before last night(got an 890 ring) would have been 869. That's a 10 ilvl difference because of secondaries being above primary stats. Now it's at 873 which is a lot better but still it's not there yet. I would enjoy it far more to see my lock being able to use his full ilvl gear rather than going "is this more mastery than my other piece?" and if not.. "not an upgrade" when it's like..15-20 ilvls higher than my current item so I'm happy they're trying to fix this.

Comment by Travis9949

on 2016-12-02T11:43:58-06:00

Survival needs more work then it's stated I'm a die hard fan of melee hunter but what incentive do I get for playing a harder spec and deal less damage that needs to be fixed. Also our damaging traps at least shouldn't be skill shots your telling me one of the top 3 damaging moves I do I have to worry about placement that's stupid no other class has that. Another problem survival was suppose to be able to burst really well why don't we so many other classes and even our own specs beat it's burst. Also why do we have no stuns literally the only melee class with no stuns here's a idea take that talent that does the knock back and change it into a stun instant easy fix. Lastly just make the traps Hitt able on targets bosses like helya in maw of souls are un hit able with traps.

Comment by Ulquiorra4thSwrd

on 2016-12-02T17:43:03-06:00

GG my frost mage, bye bye perfect stats on my dk ):

Comment by Elyseon

on 2016-12-02T21:53:36-06:00

How about making all crafted items not suck once you start doing heroic dungeons and LFR too?

Comment by belfslayer

on 2016-12-03T10:47:11-06:00

Have you guys thought about bringing Re-forging back into the game?

Comment by Sopron

on 2016-12-04T06:53:19-06:00

How about making all crafted items not suck once you start doing heroic dungeons and LFR too?

The reason is pretty simple they want you to skip dungeons because the usless items.

It is like Halls of Valor everyone hates it yet there were no nerf on the numbers of trash or cutting out parts yet... It is the longest, @#$%tiest dungeon ever... it is like Oculus in WotlK or Deadmines in Cata or Upper BR in WoD. One word: cancer. I bet all of these dungeons came from one designer. I have a job for him as a janitor.